Today's rambling: We should do this more often.
Written on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2002 at 1:14 a.m.
while feeling a bit

Today turned out to be an all-girls thing, which was GREAT. Lauren, Amanda, and I all agreed that from now on we have to do this more often. Not having guys to tag along just gave us so much more freedom! And it's not like any of us NEVER want to hang out with Kevin again, it's just nice to be away from him for awhile!

We hung out at the mall for around 2 hours. Fashion Bug had loads of really cute clothes, but unfortunately nothing really fit (something I've grown used to by this point). I ended up with a pair of neat bellbottom jeans and this shirt that has the NEATEST sleeves! It's long-sleeved, but hopefully I'll be able to deal with it. :-P I really wish I could find a shirt like the vintage one I'd bought (that doesn't fit), but I guess I'd have to make that myself...which leads me to my next problem.

The Joann's Fabrics in this mall doesn't do sewing lessons. I went in and asked today, and first off the woman acted sort've rude, which ticked me off. But she said they don't have sewing lessons, which is absolutely wretched. Where on earth can I learn how to make clothes?? I realize it's a dying art, but you'd think they'd have something SOMEWHERE!!! I'd been hoping Clarion would have some kind of Home Ec-ish class that I could take, but of course they don't. In the back of my mind, I knew they wouldn't anyway. But I'm kind of out of luck in the 'learn from your grandmother' department, since both of mine are dead...and nobody seems to want to give lessons! Am I just never going to be able to learn how to make clothing??? It really irritates me. I told Lauren I'd just pay her mom to do it, hehehe...

At any rate, we went into Waldenbooks and I bought the last book in the "Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" trilogy. Terry Brooks, I love you. The Shannara series is my favorite fantasy series ever, and I've been waiting to get this last book for ages! Well, not ages exactly, since it hasn't been out all THAT long, but I've been waiting long enough! I've read every single one of the books in this series, and I love all of them. The original trilogy (specifically, The Sword of Shannara) is my favorite, but I still like all the rest. I can't wait to start reading this book. I used up the rest of my gift card to pay for part of it (the gift card Uncle Mike sent me for Christmas, heh)! And then I still had to pay $10 after the $19 was taken off! X_X The things I do for a really good book...

Alright, so Amanda and I perused JCPenney's for a few minutes, but that store is woefully small compared to most JCPenney's stores. And it seems to be an enlarged juniors section, too, since they didn't really have women's clothing (and what little they DID have was for old ladies). Not satisfying, since I'd seen some adorable skirts on the website and had been hoping to find them at the store...

We left the mall and stood outside to wait for the bus (we'd decided not to try WalMart that day, since we didn't want to stick around from 5 to 7)...but we MISSED the bus!!! So we ended up walking down to WalMart anyway! I spent $21 on food and a few other necessities, and by the time we were done it was about an hour until the bus would be coming back. Lauren went through the line first, then Amanda, and then me. After Lauren had gone through, she told me she was going to go wait outside and condense her stuff into as few bags as possible. Amanda walked out just a minute or two after that, and then I finally paid for my stuff, went to the ATM, and walked out.

Amanda met up with me, looking very serious. "Where's Lauren?" she asked, meeting me at the doors. I explained what Lauren had told me, and Amanda said, "I just saw the bus leave."

It was her opinion that Lauren had just gotten on the bus and left without us, but I refused to believe that at first. Why would she just ditch us like that? It didn't seem like something she'd do. However, as time passed, it became apparent even to me that Lauren had left on that bus...especially after I ran back in and checked around the front of the store and the restroom. I went back outside and rejoined Amanda on the bench, and we watched the moon rise (which, by the way, is an absolutely awesome sight, one I would've enjoyed more had I not been freezing). Amanda was absolutely livid. She said she'd heard some bad things about Lauren, but she never would have expected the girl to do something like that to her own friends. I was kinda shocked myself.

We waited around for that entire hour, and then finally the bus came. Amanda and I ran for it, determined that as soon as we got home, we were going to give her a piece of our minds. But as we were ranting in the back seat, who should appear but Lauren! "Come on," she said, beckoning for us to follow her.

She'd found someone with a car and got them to come pick us up.

As it happened, the bus was on an express sort of thing, which I'd assumed from the beginning because usually, it has to stop at the end of the sidewalk for 10 minutes and it hadn't this time. Lauren had asked the woman if she would wait, but the driver said she couldn't wait that long. However, she said she would wait, so Lauren sat down..and like a minute later, the bus pulled away. After Lauren got back, she called around everywhere for someone with a car, until finally she called up Ashley. One of Ashley's friends had a car, and so that's where her story connects with mine. I just wanted to hug the girl, not just for finding someone with a car, but for proving me wrong. I knew she wasn't the type of person to just abandon her friends like that!

So yeah, it all ended happily ever after. We ordered Chinese, watched the first disc of "The 10th Kingdom", and everything was happy. No men all day.

Yeah, that's the life. ^_^